and the darkness grows
by bobbsnark
Summary: No one would have thought that Adrian Ivashkov had enough of a heart to break, but one thing Rose Hathaway was exceedingly good at was proving the world wrong.


Adrian doesn't remember what sobriety feels like. What it feels like not to rely on the warm trickle of liquor down his throat to burn away the encroaching mania and numb his tired bones. There may have been a time when he could remember waking up in the morning without the heavy fog of a hangover looming, the hammering inside his tender head, and a lethargic hand automatically extending toward the last dregs of a Jack Daniels on his nightstand as a pick me up to start the day, but if so they were memories becoming fading photographs in his mind.

There is certainly not a time he remembers not feeling like Atlas, with the whole weight of the world on his shoulders and a world ready to come crashing down around him, as he watches his mind stray further and further away from soundness. Nothing has ever left him as terrified as his will dwindling, weakening and wavering whilst there is nothing he can do about it anymore because any feelings of concern have withered already.

Part of him was ready to let his world crash and burn and be the one to light the match himself. And then she had come along, and a world tilted on its axis becomes a world realigned. Or so that was what he told himself; the booze on his breath was only force of habit and he could stop anytime, if only she asked. He would do it for her. But only if she asked.

Rose Hathaway. It had not been the first time her name had reached his ears. It was one that had been whispered over wine glasses in hushed tones at royal parties, a name whose exploits had been spread like wildfire from one gossiping Moroi to the next, eliciting both derisive sneers and, less publicly expressed, admiration for a talent found in one so young, even if it was expressed through the reckless 'kidnapping' of the last of the Dragomir line and keeping her alive for so long out in the real world, evading capture from both her own kind and the deadliest creatures on earth.

No amount of speculation could have prepared him for the real thing. The real Rose Hathaway, with the fire in her heart and the storm in her eyes – though those were nothing compared to the aura that surrounded her, the kaleidoscope of colours, luminous and ever-changing, but always, always silhouetted by a spike of darkness which sought to drown out the light. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

It was unmistakable where the darkness came from. The moment his eyes fell on the two of them together, the instant he saw the way in which Rose kept Lissa anchored and buoyant, he knew that this was her way of keeping the Princess afloat, her way of saving her from the very same spirit that ate away at him. Even if the cost was her own mind.

It was a sight that left him empty and envious.

Together, their attempts to pull him away from his destructive habits would work for a while, successfully keeping both the alcohol and delirium at bay. The chaos that seemed to surround them both proved to be an effective cure, but in the times of relative quiet he still feels the yearning in his veins for a distraction, the desire for a cigarette or two to clear the fog from his brain and deter his mind from wandering into those bouts of mental unbalance which would always come eventually, unwanted and without warning. They had never gotten used to those ever more frequent moments where his eyes glaze over and he begins to ask about the voices that nobody else could hear.

When the news of the Queen's death reaches him, he shuts himself in his room and away from the world and raises a glass to his lips in her honour. The liquid tastes bitter as it snakes its way down his throat. After a few gulps, he sees the bottle flying through the air and exploding in a cascade of broken shards and splatters against the far wall even before he realizes the bottle has left his hands. His eyes close, a meager attempt to shut the world out, as he lights up and brings the stick to his lips, inhaling the clove fumes and waits in anticipation for the nicotine to ease the frantic thoughts of his racing mind.

The trial takes a toll on him. It proves a constant reminder of events he'd like to forget, seeks to forget, but he makes the days go by in a haze of cigarette smoke and booze which makes it all that much more bearable. If his friends notice the thinness of his frame and the haggardness of his face, the dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes and his crumpled clothes then they do not comment on it. The anxiety that lights like an untempered fire in their eyes when they think he's not looking makes him think they might. But he's played this game long enough to know how to utilize the Ivashkov charm in a way that would see the worry extinguished from their features, with an infusion of spirit and charm that a few drags on a cigarette would not chase away.

Glances in the mirror in the mornings begin to bring humourless smiles to his face as the realization that the figure staring back at him in the mirror comes to look more and more like Strigoi than Moroi by the day dawns on him as the sun's rays dwindle on the horizon, and the ensuing night sky veils the day's fading light in shadow.

No one would have thought that Adrian Ivashkov had enough of a heart to break, but one thing Rose Hathaway was exceedingly good at was proving the world wrong. Her words are as sharp as thorns as they finally leave her mouth, but even more piercing is the truth he knows, deep down, that they hold, even if he isn't ready to admit it out loud. It will always be him. Adrian Ivashkov could not compete with a love that had transcended even death, or a passion that sent a woman searching a Siberian wasteland for the husk of the man she'd once loved, to dispatch of the empty, soulless monster he had become, and he had been a fool to believe that he ever could.

But Adrian Ivashkov is as good at swallowing his own lies as spinning them, and he learns that heartbreak is easy to forget under the haze of spirit and the passage of time.


End file.
